Pre-Order amounts will be added towards new Stretch Goals on our official website!

Duelyst is a tactical turn-based strategy game with rankedcompetitive play for PC, Mac, and the web, brought to you by veteran developers and creators from Diablo III, Rogue Legacy, and the Ratchet & Clank series.

The focus is on squad-based combat on a tactical map for intense, fast-paced 1v1 battles with the simple winning objective of defeating your opponent's General.

Duelyst plays like the classic tactics games of our childhood while avoiding the standard tropes from the past. You'll never need to spend hours on resource management or grind random encounters to get to the next fight.

Instead, our goal is to vigilantly remove every extraneous feature from the game to focus on its heart and soul: squad-based tactical combat.

Platform: Available for Windows/Mac/Linux and desktop browser.

Business Model: Every battle unit and spell is earned by spending time playing the game. As a result, this is NOT pay-to-win! Just like you, we want to buy a good solid game that we can go home to and play regularly with our friends.

Customize Your Battle Squad: Recruit a large roster of 100+ battle units and spells each with different abilities that interact in unique and endless ways during combat. No squad or battle will play out the same.

Online Multiplayer: Find equally matched players to play head-to-head anytime in Ranked or Draft mode on various competitive tiers.

Short Sessions: Each game session is designed to be played in less than 30 minutes. Now you can play competitive skill-based games without investing hours towards a single session.

NAGF (Not Another Generic Fantasy): The world of Duelyst has an expansive identity and mythology where you will see gorgeous landscapes filled with rich, complex characters, untold stories, and unraveled histories.

At Launch: 6 Factions with a roster of over 100 faction-specific and mercenary battle units and spells.

Ranked Draft: Each player forms their battle squad from the entire collection of units and spells available in the game in a Draft format. Each turn will last 90 seconds in a multiplayer head-to-head synchronous live game.

Ranked Normal: Each player creates their own unique squad of units and spells from their own collection of units. Each turn will last 90 seconds in a multiplayer head-to-head synchronous live game.

Practice Casual: Non-ranked play with no limit to the length of time for each turn. Submit your turn in asynchronous play (eg. "play by mail").

Single Player: Practice and challenge yourself against the computer AI. Earn new units and spells as you progress in the practice mode.

Early Beginnings...

Duelyst was originally a tabletop board game we designed for ourselves for one of our game nights. A close friend suggested that it should be rebuilt as a digital online game so that more people can play it outside of our small circle.

As a result, Duelyst quickly turned from a tiny prototype to a full-package passion project for all of us.

Our team vision is to create thoughtful, immersive games. We want to create persistent value so that you always know you're investing your time and money wisely.

We decided on Kickstarter because we didn't want our games to be adversely impacted or muddled by publishers or non-gaming investors. With your crowdfunding help, our team can focus on the game itself with minimal external influences.

As a result, the end product will be better with a more laser-focused, singular vision. Most of all, Duelyst has the chance of getting funded and ultimately shared with other like-minded tactics gamers.

Keith Lee - Team Lead (@keithlee0)Keith was the Lead Producer for Diablo III at Blizzard Entertainment and the Lead Game Programmer at Insomniac Games. He's been credited with:

Glauber Kotaki - Lead Artist (@unseven)Glauber was the Lead Artist for the popular game Rogue Legacy and the Animator for Chasm and Deep Dungeons of Doom. As a 2D game artist for over 10 years, Glauber continues to be very active in the indie games community with published articles from Gamasutra.

Emil Anticevic - Tech Lead (@eanticev)Emil has built teams and shipped products from the ground up for both enterprise web and consumer mobile apps. Recently, Emil launched Kurabi, LoL Connect, and the Frametastic app which have all garnered millions of downloads. He enjoys running social experiments in Rust and powering through bad sci-fi books better left alone.

Anton Fadeev - Lead Environment ArtistWhen Anton's not making the world of Duelyst come alive, he's busy working on an unannounced sci-fi project. Anton has an extensive background in illustration, web design, and marketing.

Collin Hover - Gameplay and Graphics Programmer (@collinhover)When Collin isn't building custom engine code ranging from real-time dynamic lighting to distortion effects, he's contributing to open source projects and even running a few of his own.

Marwan Hilmi - Web ProgrammerBesides being a JavaScript ninja and expert in pipeline tools, Marwan helps to run a secret product maker lab in the heart of San Francisco.

Eric Karl - ContributorEric worked on the Ratchet & Clank series at Insomniac Games and at Microsoft on their DirectX Graphics and Gaming team. Eric has also shipped several mobile/web titles as an indie game developer.

Ben MacDougall - Music ComposerBen has written music for many projects and media-types and recently taught a seminar on bespoke composition for radio at Harvard University. In 2012, Ben won the Jo Horowitz Award in Composition for Screen at the RCM in London and he is the official composer for Bremont. He hosts a weekly radio show for the BBC and in his free time can be found sampling instruments and other objects.

Kickstarter-Exclusive: Rogue Legacy + DOGE Shibe Skins

Exclusive Chromatic Energy FX

Functionally, your opponents will see this unique visual Chromatic effect when hovering over your units during battle. You will optionally be able to enable/disable this FX in your settings anytime.

General Alternate Colors

Alternate Faction Color Sets

Cobra Alternate Colors

Rogue Alternate Colors

Soundtrack OST

Ben MacDougall will be composing the high-octane OST for this game. The soundtrack will be included in digital form at the $40 Digital Collector Tier - with bonus tracks included as stretch-goals are reached and the game expands as a whole. W00t!

Digital Art Book

This artistic beauty will contain tons of concept art + world map, sprite and pixel artwork, early sketches, notes on the characters and the world, plus revealing knowledge of the finer details of the character and game design.

Add-Ons

How Add-Ons Work: You can add extra rewards to your current tier. Remember, no need to change your tier, just add the amount to your current tier. We will see the add-on amount and will send out a survey after the KS campaign to properly match your requests and reconfirm your shipping address.

Add $35 - Hardcover (36 pages, 8.5" x 12.5")

With high quality glossy paper and printing, this 36 page hardcover measures 8.5" x 12.5" and collects ALL the concept art, world map, pixel artwork, and early sketches.

The Art of Duelyst will be worthy of your bookshelf or coffee table.

Limited Run of 500 only.

Each signed and numbered by our artists.

Plus bonus physical artified bookmark to keep your place!

US Shipping is included.

For International Shipping, add a flat +$15 to the add-on.

Add $5 - PDF In-Depth Strategy Guide / Manual

Deep dive into all Battle Units and Spells in full detail with stats and abilities.

Covers each Faction in-depth and outlines all battle map strategies.

Included automatically with the $40 Digital Collector Tier.

Add $5 - Digital OST Soundtrack (14+ tracks)

Ben MacDougall will be composing the high-octane OST for this game.

Add $5 - PDF Digital Art Book

Tons of concept art + world map, sprite and pixel artwork, early sketches, notes on the characters and the world in PDF format.

Core Game Rules will continue to evolve based on player feedback / behavior in the upcoming months.

Winning Objective

As a Duelyst, you play the role of a Bloodborn General leading your own battle squad. You have the ability to call forth battle units and cast powerful spells to battle against your opponent's General.

Squad Composition

Additionally, you may pick neutral spells and mercenary units to complement your squad with no restriction on unit to spell ratios.

There is an upper bound of 25 total units + spells per custom squad.

Core Cost

Cores are the primary resource cost for taking actions such as deploying units, casting spells, moving and attacking with your units (for those familiar with tactics / ccgs, this is essentially your AP / Mana Pool).

At the bottom of your screen is an Action Bar with 6 Active Slots. Each turn, empty slots in your Action Bar are refilled and randomly drawn from your pre-built custom squad composition of Battle Units and Battle Spells.

Battle Units in your Action Bar can be deployed on any empty tile around your General (assuming you meet the Core Cost requirement).

Battle Units deployed on the battle map can move-attack or attack once per turn for 1 Core Cost.

Battle Units cannot take another action per turn (unless modified by a unique ability / spell).

Battle Units cannot take an action on the same turn as its deployment.
Spells in your Action Bar can be cast on a target unit or tile based (assuming you meet the Core Cost requirement).

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $25 or more
About $25

CHROMATIC TIER

Includes specialized "Rogue" Alternate Faction Color Set for the Lyonar Kingdom and the "Cobra" Alternate Faction Color Set for the Songhai Empire. Plus a unique "Chromatic" Energy visual FX your opponents will see when hovering over your units and casting your spells. All previous rewards included.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $30 or more
About $30

ASSASSIN TIER

Be the first to experience the game with Closed BETA Access. Help us improve the game by making it better, stronger, faster. With your help assassinating bugs, you'll be thanked by name in the CREDITS. All previous rewards included.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $40 or more
About $40

DIGITAL COLLECTOR

Includes a digital DRM-free copy of the OST SOUNDTRACK composed by Ben MacDougall. Plus a DIGITAL ART BOOK that includes pixel sprite concepts, character concepts, environment concepts, game assets, story revelations, hidden in-game Easter eggs, and behind the scenes notes nicely wrapped into PDF format and sent your way. All previous rewards included.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $50 or more
About $50

PRISMATIC TIER

Includes specialized Alternate Color Sets for every playable Faction to be seen by your opponents: Lyonar Kingdom, Songhai Empire, Vetruvian Empire, and Sharian Host. Plus a second set of Hi-Res wallpapers. All previous rewards included.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $60 or more
About $60

SECRET SQUAD TIER

Includes the Kickstarter Exclusive "The Abyssian" set of battle units and Bloodborn General. This playable Faction 5 includes 7 unique classes each with their own distinct abilities (Guardian, Assassin, Chaser, Arcanyst, Justice, Sentinel, and General). PLUS another copy (key or download) of the game. All previous rewards included.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $500 or more
About $500

DUELYST TRAINER TIER

Visit Counterplay Games' office in San Francisco where you will be one of the first to play an early build of Duelyst on-site! Give your feedback, thoughts, and rants directly to the development team over lunch. Additionally, we'll give you a tour of our underground product lab. Can't make it to San Francisco? Have a Skype or Google Hangout session with Duelyst Lead Keith Lee about the game or anything else on your mind. Your name will be permanently affixed to the "First Players" section of the Duelyst credits. (Transportation and lodging not provided). All previous rewards.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

DEVELOPER TIER

The Duelyst team will assist you in designing a fully playable Battle Unit with its own distinct abilities, pixel art, animations, and personality. On top of that, you'll get to sit in with the team at our underground product lab, have dinner with the developers, and receive an invitation to the internal developer launch party (transportation and accommodations not included). Receive both 75mm miniatures (Sharian Host and Songhai Empire) both signed and numbered. You will be named in the credits as Designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $2,500 or more
About $2,500

DESIGNER TIER

Our team will assist you in developing a fully playable spell in the game from start to finish covering the gameplay design process, visual FX, pixel artwork, iconography, and the naming of the spell. Receive both 75mm miniatures (Sharian Host and Songhai Empire) both signed and numbered. You will be named in the credits as Designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $5,000 or more
About $5,000

BIG BOSS TIER

The Duelyst team will assist you in designing a fully playable BIG BOSS Legendary Battle Unit with its own distinct abilities, pixel art, animations, and personality. On top of that, you'll get to sit in with the team at our underground product lab, have dinner with the developers, and receive an invitation to the internal developer launch party (transportation and accommodations not included). Receive both 75mm miniatures (Sharian Host and Songhai Empire) both signed and numbered. You will be named in the credits as Designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $10,000
About $10,000

GRAND DUELYST

The entire Duelyst team will assist you in developing an ENTIRE FACTION in the game! This covers everything from concepts, abilities, pixel art, and animations. You will assist with the Faction Crest and each individual unit class: Guardian, Assassin, Chaser, Arcanyst, Justice, Sentinel, and General. On top of that, you'll get to sit in with the team at our underground product lab, have dinner with the developers, and receive an invitation to the internal developer launch party (transportation and accommodations not included). Receive both 75mm miniatures (Sharian Host and Songhai Empire) both signed and both numbered as No. 1. You will be named in the credits as Producer.